5. "The Complete Plays," by Christopher Marlowe, pp. 56-67

Dido, Queen of Carthage, Act V

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Aeneas has decided to stay in Carthage: "Here will Aeneas build a statelier Troy." But then Hermes enters with a rebuke: "Why, cousin, stand you building cities here / And beautifying the empire of this queen / While Italy is clean out of thy mind?" He also brings the real Ascanius. Aeneas comes to his senses, but also realizes he has a problem: Dido has "ta'en away my oars and masts / And left me neither sail nor stern aboard."

Iarbas seizes at the chance to get rid of his rival and offers to outfit Aeneas's ships. But Dido shows up to proclaim, "I die if my Aeneas say farewell," to which Aeneas has a rather snappy reply: "Then let me go and never say farewell." Dido fears the damage to her reputation if he leaves:

Hast thou forgot how many neighbour kings
Were up in arms for making thee my love?
How Carthage did rebel, Iarbas storm,
And all the world calls me a second Helen,
For being entangled by a stranger's looks?
So thou wouldst prove as true as Paris did,
Would, as fair Troy was, Carthage might be sacked
And I be called a second Helena! 

Aeneas tells her to save her breath and leaves. She vows to pursue him: "I'll frame me wings of wax like Icarus, / And o'er his ships will soar unto the sun, / That they may melt and I fall in his arms." Anna tells her to "leave these idle fantasies," and Dido sends her to have the servants bring the makings of a fire, "For I intend a private sacrifice / To cure my mind that melts for unkind love."

Iarbas asks, "But afterwards will Dido grant me love?" And she says, sure, "after this is done." But she sends him away and throws herself in the fire. Iarbas kills himself when he sees what she has done, and Anna follows suit.

4. "The Complete Plays," by Christopher Marlowe, pp. 43-55

Dido, Queen of Carthage, Act IV

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Achates, Cupid disguised as Ascanius, Iarbas and Anna enter, surprised at the sudden storm:

ACHATES 

I think it was the devils' revelling night, 

There was such hurly-burly in the heavens; 

Doubtless Apollo's axle-tree is cracked, 

Or aged Atlas' shoulder out of joint, 

The motion was so over-violent. 

And there's a bit of a stir when Dido and Aeneas come out of the cave together, especially from Iarbas, who in the next scene sacrifices to the gods to persuade them to get rid of his rival. As he tells Anna, "against this Trojan do I pray, / Who seeks to rob me of thy sister's love / And dive into her heart by coloured looks." (The note glosses "coloured" as "specious.") Anna makes a pitch for Iarbas, but he spurns her.

Meanwhile, Aeneas is getting ready to leave: "Hermes this night, descending in a dream, / Hath summoned me to fruitful Italy." He tells Achates that Dido is trying to get him to stay, but Achates urges him to "Banish that ticing dame from forth your mouth / And follow your foreseeing stars in all." Aeneas wavers a bit, but finally urges himself, "To sea, Aeneas, find out Italy!"

Dido and Anna enter in pursuit of Aeneas, who claims he's not leaving: "Hath not the Carthage Queen mine only son? / Thinks Dido I will go and leave him here?" She gives him a crown and sceptre to persuade him to stay and rule Carthage with her, and it seems to do the trick: He'll stay in Carthage and carry on the legacy of Troy there. Still, after he exits, she worries that she should do more to keep him there. She orders her attendants to have Ascanius taken to the country to her nurse's house and then wonders, "What if I sink his ships? O he'll frown!" (A lovely understatement.) "If he forsake me not, I never die, / For in his looks I see eternity, / And he'll make me immortal with a kiss." (Anticipating Faustus's plea to Helen.) The attendants return with "Aeneas' tackling, oars, and sails." The act ends with the Nurse enticing Cupid/Ascanius to her house.